Name: Never Too Much by freefrench
Duration: 3 min 45 s
Description: In which I bear a startling resemblance to Luther Vandross.

Walk On

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(c) 1965 Records

Rob Smoughton is probably best known as a long-time member of Hot Chip and Scritti Politti, while his alter-ego Grovesnor has released a number of albums to critical acclaim.

Now he unveils his new band, Black Peaches.

A midway point between the swamp and the tropics, Black Peaches’ music is gloriously loose-limbed and strung-out: a psychotropic stew of country boogie, spiritual jazz and funk.

With slide guitars, Latin percussion and shimmering keyboards, the Peaches sound is a cinematic experience, the soundtrack to a bar fight at the country disco or an incantation of the black arts. At other times they swagger with the easy confidence of Little Feat, Manassas, or Dr John to create a pulsating, unwinding groove for a hot summer's day where no one is in too much of a hurry.

Black Peaches is not just a sextet, but in the mind of its skipper, Smoughton, a destination where various strands of musical flavour and colour coalesce to form a heavenly brew, equal parts melody and groove, grit and bliss, sublimely tight and gloriously loose-limbed.

Black Peaches demanded a band format so, Smoughton sent his initial demos to musicians he fancied roping in, like Nick Roberts, Grosvenor’s live drummer, and Charlie Michael (The Severed Limb, Shock Defeat), a master of Brazilian percussion. Smoughton had played with bassist Susumu Mukai in (Hot Chip frontman) Alexis Taylor’s live band. Duelling guitarist Adam Chetwood, is a fellow country and jazz fan and plays pedal steel too. Thomas Greene (Cold Specks) on keyboards completes a consummate line-up that added ideas to Smoughton’s demos, which he took away and wrote more parts for.

Inspirations include ‘70s Nashville combo Barefoot Jerry and their guitarist Mac Gaden - that combination of southern soul and country coming together, with Caribbean or South American music seeped in.

Steven Stills’ first post-Crosby Stills Nash & Young ensemble Manassas were a blueprint in terms of Black Peaches’ line-up, with percussion and pedal steel.

Then from Brazil, the rhythm section of Baden Powell Sambas’ 1966 album Os Afro Sambas and the double guitar attack of the psych-tinged Novos Baianos, alongside Chicago’s funky post-rockers 5Style and Krautrock legends Can.

After all, peaches don’t only grow in Georgia…

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The John Lewis advert bugged me so much I thought I should create something monstrous that made it look like the feeble streak of horsepiss that it is. I'm not sure I managed that, but I knocked it out in three hours and laughed like an idiot in a room on my own for most of those three hours. Merry Xmas everyone..

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In which I bear a startling resemblance to Luther Vandross.

Never Too Much

Vapid Response Unit. Writer of stuff. Also: musical octopus. I play in Scritti Politti, Dream Themes and Prescott. Pissing into the wind.

Never Too Much

freefrench

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